When Subtlety Has No Means
by Doughnut of Ericks
Summary: Her name escaped the callouses of his lips, like his thirst for the girl were insanity itself, said once more, repeated until it was a system of habit."


When Subtlety Has No Means A Trigun Fanfiction By The Coherant Rabbit  
  
To Meryl Styfe and Vash the Stampede -- despite the trials of immortality and mortality that caused Vash's love to stray far from Meryl, I gave Meryl some hope that Vash's affection lingers even more powerfully than hers.  
  
To My Mother -- may the fates treat her with the most subtle of touches, so that she may ne'er break nor shatter beneath a lifetime of torment.  
  
To My Soulmate -- whom, I know not what his face may behold, or the timber of his voice might lilt, yet I know the day we encounter the other, he will remain mine for always, though he knows not the letters of my name.  
  
"Her name escaped the callouses of his lips, like his thirst for the girl were insanity itself, said once more, repeated until it was a system of habit."  
- Vash  
  
Part One: The Necessity  
  
The corruption in his eyes had evolved past the simple confusion that lingered as a child; brotherly love no longered existed, or held meaning to the Devil before me. Humans cannot infer what "evil" stands as definition to such a demon as Knives. To aggrandize himself beyond mortals, to relieve Gunsmoke of their "filthy substance," to annihilate them for the sins they could not commit was within the demonic stirrings of his eyes; he was no longer mortal, or contained the meaning of humanity. He could not feel pain, for this, he inflicts them upon others, like the petty playthings of a child who knows not the damage upon his toys, but of only the satisfaction at their maimed sight.  
  
The brother who would harold a Pyrrhic victory, despite the worldy costs of his ruinous victory, and yes, that bitter laugh of his, dry and unyielding, would be the one remaining sound among the chaos, the death, and despair. How he would relish the sight of, among the dead, the once lively carcass Millie Thompson had become, the philosopher with his God, Nicholas D. Wolfwood, and --  
  
At the debuting appearance of a particular, lifeless flesh, lost by the rubble in which once grand building stood, now the current dirt that were the habitue of the arid desert, the Humanoid Typhoon was a creature defeated by his tears, sincere liquid so precious only since Rem Severem died, were they shed. If men could weep as he did, dignity knew no more, for all the regret, doubt, and emotional distress had become his tiredless sobbing; loud, desperate wailing of a man who knew no more the means of living.  
  
"Meryl." Her name escaped the callouses of his lips, like his thirst for the girl were insanity itself, said once more, repeated until it was a system of habit. Then choked, maddening laughter which mingled in the irony of his tears were heard, to the shock of the sender who came to terms that it was himself who permitted such a noise. His spiteful laughter. There was no surcrease to his hindrance, for death was who he loved, who he came to love, and what became of his lovings.  
  
Knives, his hands, stained a scarlet mass, bared the encumbrance of the deaths in which Rem Severem and Meryl Stryfe had, to the unfortunate circumstances, lay victim to. With the last of his futile chortles of rage, Vash sought the blood red tint of the sky that witnessed the massacre humanity was vulnerable to defend and screamed avengance against the murderer who indulged in the blood of mortals.  
  
"Knives!"  
  
***  
"Knives!"  
  
Bodies, infested with the feasting of the flies and extracting a revolting stench, of mortals killed by Knives were mere appartitions that drew more to reality in his nightmares among the cheap linen of the hotel's bunk. The sky, it was no other color than the hue of which a time before dawn occurred, consisting of its ordinary faded tint; it did not relish the stain of blood, nor did it take its appearance. All was as it was; Millie, Wolfwood, and Meryl did not perish in his brother's reign.  
  
Merely a nightmare. Despite how factual, how in depth the scenario was, despite the arid taste of tears known on the ragged terrain of his face; despite how the blood tasted nearly as bitter as if true.  
  
Amist the transition of the Land of Nod to reality, a rather warm bundle was clearly overseen, slumbering in what one would call the most serene of manners, on the side of our dear hero's cot. It was then did he notice the person who took residence beside him; hands entwined in such an intimate manner that it caused fear to emit the man, which came with unworthiness and shock. Her virgin hand upon his dirty flesh, one that held the scars of his burden, constantly a startling reminder of his contrast with her.  
  
Yet, it could not hide what a man of his emotional vulnerability ached during the younger years of eternity: affection, comfort, and the warmth of a companion. Men are dependent on the companion of women to soothe as a balm of Gilead. There were times when a woman's touch was the hunger that nearly starved him over the years, the taunting, the want, the necessity. She, the womanly figure taking rest on his bedside, was to slate the years of such deprived need.  
  
If he could be worthy of such a pleasure, if only he could be worthy of the sacrafice she offered to attend to him while he dreamed of destruction, an almost premonition of her death.  
  
Her rather unpromising position impulsed him to entwine her lithe, compact body in his arms, craddling her head with such sentimental care while he carried the young Stryfe to her chambers, and once into her bed, where she would not cause him to desire eagerly what years and indenity had denied him so. There, captivated by the moonlight that caressed her cheekbone with such tender fingers, with an envious gaze, stared upon her as she slept, as the moonlight who previously grazed her cheek mingled with the intimdating night in the festivities of lovers, no longer a massacre of their tragedy fortold in his pipe dream.  
  
Within the gentle persuation of his one hand was her handkerchief from the yesterdays before today, where she offered this, which he shamlessly kept as his possession, to be enticed by him, coaxed by his words, to be touched on the lips by him, to be his constant companion when she could not.  
  
Hours were no longer a necessity as the Humanoid Typhoon stalked among the opaque shadows of the early morn; his gaze, a tender, silent embrace to her etheral sight, until once more as nightly his hours, shifted to his cold comfort on his bed, sleeping among the sleepless, the isomniacs who envied what the night could not offer. Eyes wide shut; the hankerchief applied as a soothing compress upon his eyes, emitting a soft fragrance which was merely Meryl Stryfe. He groaned. Death could not play such satisfaction than this lifeless torture which acted as nightly resurrections on his humanity.  
  
She was his revision.  
  
"Vash, why is that you never smile?"  
  
His revision kneeled before him, along his bedside, as if she could not recall that they were partaking on conversations in the dark. Investigations were within the absurdity of such as the words that strolled languid marathons on his mind when she dared to impugn his tiredless facades in order for concerns, human pity, to not overtake his humanity. In order for strength to prevail, and events in which humanity, the vulnerability of that individual aspect, would not overtake his beast, or be repeated by the reason of time, for weakness could be his immortal's killer.  
  
Eyes resembling those of an insouciant, porcelain doll's replied Styfe with the smile of factitious manner; marveling on how, under the dust of morn, could subtle beauty such as hers had known the depths of a mystery as of he-- there was no other woman that could compliment wholesomeness in an entire being, only Stryfe would be the embrace; she simply had become before she knew it herself. Beauty impersofied, intense and riveting, like viewing the birth of a blossom, its virgin petals the epitome of all good that was she. Meryl Stryfe, how she woos him so unintentionally with the mere parting of her lips as he laid possession on her without his or her consent.  
  
"I don't know what you are talking about, Insurance Girl. I smile more than you do!"  
  
"God, Vash. You are such a bastard. Bastard."  
  
It was then arms, that warm, sincere escape of emotion, encased Vash within its lethal binds, and sobbing with mirth and grievance unknown to him. As tears, the blissful touches, scalded the surface horizon of his skin, beneath the insecurity and worthlessness, invited was the tears to his heart; the bleeding organ that surpassed the mind, reigning passion before reason, the victor Vash before Knives.  
  
A/N: Okay, you guys. I stopped here, but that doesn't mean it isn't the end of chapter one. It's just that I worked on this part for so long, and well, I need some feedback to inspire me. And for those assholes who say that demanding reviews in exchange for chapters is not the right thing, well, BULLSHIT TO THAT. Hello, be realistic here. You think we, authors, don't starve from rejection? Think again. Love ya!  
  
- The Coherant Rabbit [formerly known as, Nikki Miyawaza]  
  
[A STRING OF VASH'S WORDS FROM THE NEXT PART OF "When Subetly Has No Means"]  
  
"No, you can't. Never. You can just be the insurance girl to me, but I won't remain another man, another nameless face in the crowd. I won't allow this. I can't be a stranger to you."  
  
"It is not the issue of injustice; it's the issue of competence. I cannot bear you the worldy objects you deserve, or the life that succeeds you. I am a cursed man, a man who will give you grief for all the days of your life."  
  
"An exchange of smiles. Yours for mine, and mine for yours." 


End file.
